The development of university teachers’ collaboration networks during a departmental professional development project

Professional interaction in the workplace is an indispensable part of professional development. We examined how teachers' teaching collaboration networks within a university department changed throughout an eight-month professional development project and how these networks influenced teachers’ observation choices in formative peer observations. Stochastic actor-oriented modeling (SAOM) shows that it was more likely that teachers started to collaborate when they were working on the same floor (propinquity), were more active in attending project meetings, and had more teaching experience. The multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MR-QAP) indicates that teachers were more likely to observe colleagues with whom they already collaborated. •Collaboration networks became denser during the professional development project.•Collaboration patterns were positively related to propinquity.•Experienced teachers (more than 5 years) were more likely to collaborate.•Informal interaction outside work was positively related to a collaboration tendency.•Teachers were more likely to observe a colleague with whom they already collaborate.